Heroic Measures Having bulked up his body (well, a little) and embellished his game, Reggie Miller is trying to carry the Pacers to their first Finals appearance

Indiana Pacers shooting guard Reggie Miller has probably hit moreclutch postseason shots than any other active player, yet heremains on the periphery of superstardom, an outside shooter, ifyou will, looking in. A case could be made that he's afirst-ballot Hall of Famer: In his 13 seasons he has sunk morethree-point shots than any other NBA player in history and,almost as important, has made Madison Square Garden courtsideirritant Spike Lee look like a fool on more than one occasion.But a credible argument (based on Miller's questionable shotselection, his liabilities as a defender and zero championshiprings) could be made for his exclusion. The cartoonishappearance, the trash-talking, the arsenal of improbablelong-distance leaners, floaters and fadeaways--they've allconspired to make Miller more sideshow than main event, a statusthat probably won't change until Indiana makes its firstappearance in the NBA Finals. "So, maybe," Miller said last week,"this is the season all that changes."

Maybe it is. While the Pacers are among the league's oldies butgoodies, they did have enough firepower in the first round toknock off the Milwaukee Bucks, a team with, to use Miller'seye-rolling description, "young legs." Other evidence, however,suggests that Indiana will again stumble in the EasternConference finals, as it has the past two seasons. If, that is,the Pacers make it that far. After taking three straight from thePhiladelphia 76ers in their conference semifinal, Indiana droppedGames 4 and 5, the latter a 107-86 humbling at home on Mondaynight in which the Sixers scored the first 15 points. The Pacers'play on the boards would need improvement to be consideredpathetic--Philadelphia outrebounded them in all five games--and abona fide 10-deep roster, which can be a blessing, has sometimespresented dizzying playing-time headaches for coach Larry Bird.

Then there is the matter of Miller's composure--or the lackthereof. The Pacers' star sat out Monday night's game afterreceiving a one-game suspension for shoving Sixers center MattGeiger in last Saturday's Game 4 at First Union Center. A dayearlier Miller had walked along the streets of Philadelphiadressed in a plaid shirt, pressed jeans, a floppy hat andsunglasses, looking so sweet and unassuming that even a 76ers fanmight have thought about throwing an arm around his slendershoulders and saying howdy. That would have been fine withMiller, who's about as approachable as a big-name athlete can be.Just before the tip-off on Saturday, though, the Sixers' fanswere baiting Miller by chanting his other surname, which isSucks. His M.O. is to encourage the catcallers, egg them on alittle by cocking his hand to his ear or strutting morepeacockishly, then to bury a dagger-in-the-heart three-pointer.Late in Game 4, however, it was Miller who lost his cool.

After being slammed to the floor by the 7'1", 248-pound Geiger inthe third quarter, the second such flagrant foul he had committedagainst Miller that afternoon, Miller went after the baldmuscleman, thereby earning a technical foul, an ejection, a$5,000 fine and the suspension. (Geiger was ejected, fined$20,000 and suspended for two games, and the Sixers were fined$50,000.) Miller's teammates offered the predictable defense ofhim in public, but privately some were incensed that he hadgotten tossed for a shove to the face of a player who, as SamPerkins put it, "isn't worth it."

Until that mistimed Geiger counter, Miller's comportment andperformance in the playoffs had been beyond reproach. The Pacersdo have "young legs"--swingman Jalen Rose and point guard TravisBest, both 27, are key players--but as the postseason has worn on,more and more weight has been carried by the 34-year-old Miller.He laid 34 and 41 points on the Bucks in crucial Games 3 and 5 ofthe first-round series, then opened with 40 in Game 1 against theSixers. That total was matched by Rose, which demonstrated thatthere are enough shots to keep both Mr. Past and Mr. Futurehappy. Ah, but who is Mr. Present? "It's playoff time," saysBird. "Reggie's the man, and he knows he's the man."

In the regular season there was a temptation to think that thetorch had been passed to Rose, given that he supplanted Miller,after 10 straight years, as the team's leading scorer (18.2points per game compared with Miller's 18.1) and that Reggiereally did Suck in last year's postseason. (He shot only 39.7%.)But Miller's reemergence is more than Indiana's turning to aproven veteran in tough times; it's the result of changes Millermade in both his body and his game before the season. "It's allcoming together now," he says.

Granted, the changes are subtle. When he takes off his shirt, theskin is still stretched so tight on his gangly 6'7" body that ifyou plucked him with your finger, you'd swear he'd make a soundlike a harp. But he is six or seven pounds heavier than in recentseasons, at around 192, and he started in November as high as205. He built himself up through a rigorous, six-day-a-weekoff-season program of plyometrics, which included a lot ofanaerobic work, such as jumping and lifting heavy weights withfew repetitions. He has continued lifting throughout the season.(Perhaps that's why he went after Geiger.) It took Miller a whileto get used to the increased poundage, but he says he feels moredurable and less enervated than in previous Mays.

As far as his playing style goes, Miller appears at first blushto be the same loopy launcher he's always been, flying pell-melloff picks and throwing up off-balance shots that would draw snideremarks at the Y. But he's not. In the past, Miller generallyneeded screens and movement to squeeze off his shots, largelybecause he wasn't strong enough to fight through the bumps andhand checks. These days, owing to his added muscle and to aleague that has (supposedly) clamped down on clutching andgrabbing, Miller is backing his opponents down more and postingup, and he's gotten better at creating his own shots. To pick upsome moves, he has spent many hours watching videotape ofcreators such as Ray Allen, Kobe Bryant and Allen Iverson. "Hey,I'm not proud," says Miller. "If I can learn from the young guys,I'll do it. That doesn't mean I'll come down with a killercrossover like Iverson, but there are a few things I've learned."

"What makes Reggie special," says Indiana assistant coach RickCarlisle, "is this combination of things that goes on inside ofhim. He's got the gunslinger's mentality, the I-can-make-anythingattitude, but he's also a man with a routine, a man with aself-discipline that's totally directed toward getting him readyto play."

Routine? Oh, man, don't get him started. For home games he has tobe the first player to arrive, which means getting to ConsecoFieldhouse by 4:15 p.m. He gets dressed the same way every night:compression shorts, then uniform shorts, then socks, then shoes,then shooting T-shirt. The same ball boy, Donnie Strack, mustassist him. After 15 minutes of shooting, he gets stretched,either out on the court or in the locker room, "depending on thekarma," he says. Then he must get stretched again, "on thetable." By this time it's about 5:45, and he sends Strack to gethim something to eat, maybe pasta or chicken, "but not too much,because I like to be a little hungry yet have something in thereto burn off," Miller says. (The subject of how he undresses afterthe game was not approached; there just wasn't time.)

"It's not exactly superstitiousness," says Miller. "It's morethat I like things around me to be a certain way. It's especiallyimportant that I have people around me who are energetic andpositive. That's why I love this team. Nobody gets in fights inbars. Knock on wood. Nobody smacks around women. Knock on wood.No white guys are on one side of the room and black guys on theother. And Mark and I, we're like the parents."

Point guard Mark Jackson is Miller's bosom buddy and the sourceof much of his good karma. (Jackson was with Miller last monthwhen, before Game 3 in Milwaukee, Miller purchased his SupermanT-shirt at a mall, wore it during warmups, then toasted the Buckswith 34 points.) They have their differences, particularly insporting debates--Miller, for example, chooses Joe Montana as hisquarterback and Rod Carew as his hitter, while Jackson goes withDan Marino and Tony Gwynn--but they are like brothers. "Like me,Mark likes to come into the enemy's arena, talk a little trash,shut people up in their own place," Miller says. "He's got guts.He'll come at you. Yet with all that he's a God-fearing,Christian man."

Jackson is also, like Miller, a man in the final year of hiscontract, and the two have talked about presenting themselves asa Koufax-and-Drysdale package deal to team president DonnieWalsh, who earlier in the season tabled the idea of re-uppingMiller early. Walsh says he doesn't do packages. "But of course Iwant Reggie back," Walsh says. "Read nothing into the fact that Ididn't sign him earlier."

Walsh was less definitive about Miller's buddy: "We have a lot ofdecisions to make, but what I'll say about Mark is that he canreally, really run a basketball team." (An artful dodge, that.)The question about Jackson is whether he can remain a positiveinfluence in the locker room if Best continues to take minutesfrom him.

Miller wants to be back home again in Indiana, and his value tothe team was never more evident than in the Monday night debacle."I'm proud of the fact that I've stayed in one place my wholecareer, which is getting harder and harder to do," he says. "I'mnot going to take any kind of stand or anything. But all I cansay is, if Donnie Walsh and the Simons [owners Melvin andHerbert] don't know the value of a guy like Mark--the veteranleadership, the winning attitude--something's wrong."

Another factor that could disturb Miller's karma for next seasonis the departure of Bird, who may return to the Pacers' frontoffice but definitely won't be on the bench. "You think you don'thave anything more to learn in this game, and along comes LarryBird," says Miller, shaking his head. "The game preparation, thelittle things. Maybe you're up by a little bit, in the middle ofa run, and you're coming down and--boom--you pull up and take thatthree to break their back. Larry did it. He wants me to do it.And you know what? If you miss, he doesn't care. If you're goingto be a hero, you've got to take hero shots."

Bird's exit, Miller's and Jackson's contract status, theascendancy of Rose and Best--one gets the feeling that this is thelast season for Indiana, as currently constituted, to vie for achampionship. Miller won't say it, but he seems to realize it,too. Though he says he has retired the Superman T-shirt ("Youcan't take a chance of tarnishing Superman's name," he says),he'll need to make a Man of Steel effort to get the Pacers pastthe muscular Heat or Knicks, never mind what horrors from theWest would await them in the Finals. Miller, feeling the goodkarma, says that's not a problem. "The flowers are in bloom, thetrees are green, spring is upon us and the playoffs are here," hesays. "That means it's Miller time."

Reggie Miller is in a class by himself, and he'd like to get outof it. Of the 32 players who have scored at least 2,000 careerpostseason points, Miller is the only one who has never reachedthe Finals. What's more, through Sunday's games Miller rankedfifth in postseason scoring average among players who haveappeared in a minimum of 25 playoff games but never played forthe title. --David Sabino